While much is known concerning the effect of nutrition on health, scientific knowledge does not always lead to improvements in the diets of consumers. For instance, although many scientists believe that ingestion of saturated fatty acids should be minimized, consumers continue to eat foods which are relatively high in these components. One example of such a food is butter.
In recent years, butter consumption has been increasing despite the fact that labels show that it typically contains substantially more saturated fat than soft spreads made from vegetable oils. This may be partly a result of historical consumer concerns over trans fatty acids. However, spread manufacturers have been removing trans fatty acids from their products so that many soft spreads include extremely low amounts of trans fatty acids as well as low levels of saturated fats. Moreover, consumers unfortunately sometimes migrate toward products which they consider an indulgence despite known nutritional drawbacks. Although some consumer tests show certain soft spreads taste better than butter, many consumers continue to consider butter as the “gold standard” tastewise.
Much scientific interest has been focused on the Mediterranean diet. This has accelerated with the recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine of a study showing the Mediterranean diet as useful in preventing heart disease in individuals at high risk. Among the components of the Mediterranean diet are olive oil and nuts, products which are relatively high in monounsaturated fatty acids. Of course, these are not the only fatty acids which have engaged the attention of nutritionists. Other fatty acids of interest for maintaining good health include the omega-6 acid, linoleic acid, which for many years has been known to be useful to serum lower LDL cholesterol.